Dark Hearts
by ilaria-eugeal-tomasini
Summary: Regina thought she was going to have her happy ending with Robin Hood, but she lost her chance to be loved when Emma saved Lady Marian, reuniting her with her husband. Guy of Gisborne is haunted by guilt for killing Marian, the only love of his life. Their hearts are dark, but is darkness the only thing Guy and Regina have in common?
1. Prologue - Broken Souls

_Storybrooke – Present_

Once again, for her there wasn't a happy ending.  
Regina closed the door behind her and she leaned against it, closing her eyes, defeated.  
What was the point to have a heart if it had to hurt so bad?  
Twice she had believed that it was possible for her to be happy and both times her love was snatched from her just a moment before it become real.  
For years she had hated Snow White for having ruined her life, she had let the pain to drag her into the darkness, and, now that she had managed to emerge from it, Emma had saved Marian, reuniting her with Robin Hood and snatching from Regina every hope to be happy.  
Why did she have to behave like she was good, when the happy ending always eluded her?  
 _Maybe it's because I am not good. The bad guys never live happily ever after, maybe this is not my destiny._  
She covered her face with her hands and she was surprised to feel it was wet.  
Tears? Was _she_ crying?  
She wiped them with magic, moving her fingers with an abrupt gesture and she straightened herself.  
After the sorrow, the anger came and Regina felt it boiling in her heart, once again giving her the energies she thought she had lost forever just a few minutes ago.  
There wasn't a happy ending for her? If so, she would take it by herself, she decided.  
If happiness was torn from her, she would struggle to conquer it and nobody, nobody could prevent her from getting what she wanted.  
She went down the stairs of her mausoleum and she chose the ingredients for a spell: she mixed them in a bowl that she had placed on the ground. Then she added one of the tears that she had dried from her face and a drop of her own blood: anger and pain mixed together would have the strength to bend fate itself.  
Between her and her happy ending there was a woman, Marian. If she eliminated her, Regina would be happy, but she couldn't do it with her hands or Robin would end up hating her.  
She ran a hand over the surface of the liquid in the bowl, making it tremble.  
"Bring me someone who can kill her, bring me the murderer of Marian." She said, then she poured all her power in the spell.

 _Locksley - Nottinghamshire – 1193_

Demons, demons who came as soon as he tried to close his eyes, crawling out of the shadows and clawing at his mind...  
Guy of Gisborne was lying on the bed and he stared at the ceiling, exhausted, but too terrified to try to sleep. If he let go, if he allowed the thoughts to wander while he surrendered to sleep, the demons would come back to haunt him and eventually they would force him to remember, to see again the only scene that he wished he could erase from his mind.  
Marian.  
The only love of his life, the only light in his dark existence.  
Marian dressed in white like an angel.  
Marian laughing while she humiliated him.  
Marian trampling on his love, the only pure thing that Guy had ever had.  
And then a void, a darkness that had enveloped his heart and, when it dissolved, there had been red, a red flower of blood spreading on the whiteness of her dress, a flower whose stem was the blade of Guy's sword.  
Gisborne wrapped his fingers around the handle of his curved dagger. Sleep approached crawling at him and it was an enemy to fight, an enemy that would bring only memories with him, and more sorrow.  
He slid the blade on the palm of his hand, wishing he could press it further down, that he could slice the veins of his wrist and find the courage to let himself die, but how could he end his life when he knew that waiting for him there was only hell?  
He cut the skin of his palm, pressing enough to draw blood, punishing the hand that had wielded the sword, the hand that had ended Marian's life. The pain made him wince, waking him completely and Guy tearfully laughed because he knew that he had driven sleep away, that he had won another battle against that enemy.  
An arrow came through the window, missing him by a few centimeters and sticking itself in the head of the bed, then a dreaded and familiar voice followed it a few moments later, calling his name.  
Guy looked at the arrow shaft that was still vibrating.  
"He has come." He whispered.  
Robin Hood had returned to avenge Marian's death and he, Guy, was sure that he couldn't survive this confrontation.  
 _Robin Hood..._  
Without him, Marian would be his.  
She would have been alive.  
Gisborne got out of bed, animated by a new fury: Robin was there to avenge Marian, but Guy would avenge her death by killing the man who had caused it.  
He started toward the door, staggering, but he was never able to reach it: a dark fog suddenly enveloped him, depriving him of all energy and making him fall in the darkness.  
When the fog lifted, the room was empty.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Murderer and the Queen

Regina looked at the dark mist that started to thicken and all her anger suddenly deflated. Henry's face had appeared in her mind and Regina could imagine the pained and hurt look of the child if he had seen her acting like that.  
She had changed for him, to regain his affection and now she wouldn't be able to return to what she once was.  
She couldn't kill Marian.  
That woman would take away the man she loved, and she would have to accept it, otherwise she'd lose everything, even the love of Henry.  
 _Perhaps he is the only happy ending that I can hope for. I'll have to learn accept it._  
She raised her hand to stop the spell, but when the black fog dispersed, there was already a man crouched on the floor in front of her.  
It was too late: she conjured the murderer!  
Regina decided to send him back, to make him disappear, but, before doing so, she stopped to look at him, curiously.  
The man was tall and strong, but he seemed somehow broken, as if he lacked the strength and the will to get up off the ground. His dark hair, long and shaggy, covered his face, but Regina felt that the stranger was looking at her, she could feel his piercing gaze on her.  
She stepped closer to him, wrinkling her nose. Surely, she thought, he would need a bath.  
The large black shirt he wore was wet with sweat and it was so crumpled to give the impression that its owner had slept wearing it for who knows how long and the unkempt locks that covered his face appeared to have been washed even less often than his clothes.  
She took another step toward him, and the man gasped, finally getting up off the ground: he jumped up and he drew a sword, backing up until he had the wall behind his back.  
"What happened?!" He shouted, and Regina noticed that his voice, though broken and trembling with panic, had a warm and deep tone. "Where's Robin Hood?! Who are you? What have you done?!"  
Regina stared at him, surprised to hear the name of Robin on his lips and she took a step toward him, while moving a hand to disarm him with magic.  
"No, I'm asking the questions. Who are you?"  
Guy looked at his sword, stunned: the weapon had been pulled from him by an unseen force and was flown to the ground.  
"This is magic! Are you a witch?!" He said, more and more agitated and he cried when a mysterious power kept him stuck against the wall, preventing him from escaping.  
"Answer. I know that you are a murderer, but I want to know your name."  
Something seemed to break in him at those words: Guy slumped against the wall and he stopped fighting. If Regina had not held him with her power, he would probably have dropped to the ground.  
"This is it, then? Is this hell? I died and this is my punishment?"  
Regina stared at him, stricken by the despair she heard in his voice, and when she spoke again to him, it came natural for her to do it more gently.  
"Tell me your name."  
The man looked at her, raising his head. His hair slid back from his face and for the first time Regina was able to see his face: he was a grown man, but still young, with a handsome face, but marked by pain and perhaps madness. In his eyes, of a deep blue, a thousand conflicting emotions were running, in a flurry storm.  
"Guy of Gisborne." He said, defeated, and he closed his eyes as if saying his name he had surrendered to a fate too terrible to bear.  
"Do you know Robin Hood?"  
Guy winced at hearing that name and he let out a bitter laugh.  
"If I am in hell it's his fault. Will he never leave me alone? At least I was hoping not to hear that name amongst the eternal flames."  
"I asked you a question, answer me! What do you have to do with Robin Hood?!"  
Gisborne opened his eyes to look at her and Regina saw a rage all too similar to what she felt.  
"Robin Hood..." Guy said, pronouncing the two words of his name with disdain "He always had everything that should have been mine. My land, the respect of the people, Marian. She would have to love me, not him! Her love would have saved me, it would have cleansed my soul and I wouldn't have to go to hell... If she had loved me, I wouldn't have killed her..." His voice broke with a sob and Regina found herself thinking that she could understand him all too well.  
The man seemed to be convinced that he had killed Marian and perhaps he came from a reality in which that had really happened, but, apart from that detail, he, like her, seemed to suffer for her very same reason: Robin Hood and Marian were in love and for the two of them there was no hope.  
"You're not in hell." She said, flatly, and the man looked at her skeptically.  
"No? Then I must have become mad, at last."  
"If you're crazy I can't know, but what you see is reality, not a hallucination. And you're not even dead, if you care to know. Maybe in your world there is no magic, but believe me, you'll get used to it soon."  
"In my world? Where have you brought me? What do you want from me?"  
Regina stopped blocking him with her power and Guy staggered and had to lean against the wall to keep from falling to the ground.  
"What I wanted was a folly, now I see. This place is called Storybrooke, but it doesn't matter, now I will send you back to where you came from.  
Guy looked at her, terrified.  
"No!"  
"No?"  
"This is not hell, right? Do you swear it?"  
"Of course it's not hell, what nonsense!"  
"Don't send me back, then! I don't want to go back to Nottingham! I don't want go back to my life! _That_ is hell."  
Regina looked at him, puzzled. That man was pleading and she found herself to feel pity for him.  
Her suffering had blinded her for a while, making her to use that spell and, instead of finding a ruthless murderer willing to kill her rival, she had summoned a person who was suffering even more than her because in some different reality he had already killed Marian.  
Regina raised a finger in a gesture of admonition.  
"If I allow you to remain here, there will be some conditions."  
"I won't sell you my soul, if that's what you mean. I am already destined to go to hell, anyway."  
Regina gave him an ironic look.  
"Is everyone so dramatic in the place you come from? I don't care about your soul, I am not a devil. At most I could take your heart, but I do not care either. My conditions are more simple: you will never try to harm me in any way, you will not tell anyone that it was I who brought you here and you will not create problems in the city. And I expect you to obey me. If you won't, you'll find yourself back to the life that you want to escape so desperately. Do you think you can follow my rules?"  
Guy looked at her and Regina discovered in his eyes a certain pride that had previously been hidden by terror.  
"I will obey, but only if what you ask will not go against my conscience. I have already served a demon and I will not do it again."  
"Oh, a murderer with a conscience... All right, it's acceptable. Now give me a hand."  
Guy looked at her suspiciously, glancing at his sword on the floor.  
Regina snapped her fingers with a sigh and the sword disappeared and reappeared in Guy's scabbard.  
"If you think you are safer, keep your toy. Now give me your hand."  
Gisborne put hin fingers on Regina's ones and the world vanished in a puff of smoke. A moment later he found himself at the center of an elegant living room, all black and white and decorated with furniture in a style that he didn't know. On the ceiling and the walls, the chandeliers didn't have candles, but glass globes that emitted a bright light.  
"Is that magic?"  
Regina looked at him, rolling her eyes.  
"They are light bulbs."  
The other looked at her blankly.  
"This world is very different from yours, but you'll get used to it. We all did it. Now come."  
"Where?"  
"If you want to stay here, it isn't your soul that needs to be purified."  
"What do you mean?"  
"A bath, you definitely need a bath. Or even this goes against your conscience?"  
Guy ran a hand through his tousled hair and he looked at his reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall, then he stared at the Regina with a half smile.  
"No, it doesn't go against my conscience, and I admit that it isn't a bad idea. Ask your servants to heat water for a bath."  
This time it was Regina who smiled.  
"There is not need for servants. Come upstairs and I will show you the miracles of modern hydraulics. I think you will like this aspect of Storybrooke. Everyone appreciates it."  
Regina pointed to the stairs and Guy hesitated for a moment before following her, then he shrugged and he put aside his fears.  
After all, what had he to lose?


	3. Chapter 3 - A Whole New World

The bathroom door closed behind Regina with a click and, left alone, Guy leaned against it, ha closed his eyes and he took a deep breath, trying to calm down.  
Too many absurd things happened in a matter of minutes and he had yet to believe that this wasn't a particularly elaborate nightmare.  
Just a moment before he was about to fight to the death against Robin Hood, and the next one he found himself in a completely unknown world, dragged there by a woman who could use magic, but that didn't look anything like the witches of which he had heard.  
Regina, that was her name, had told him that this place, Storybrooke, was in the future, more than eight centuries later than the time from which he came.  
It was a terrifying thought to think of how many generations could be born and died in more than eight hundred years: if Regina hadn't brought him there, his body would have been dust for many years now and, dying without heirs, no one would have remembered the name of Gisborne.  
Yet he was there, still alive beyond all expectations, and he breathed the air of a world and a time that he didn't belong to.  
He was simply terrified, yet he couldn't help but think that for him this might be the only chance he had to start a new life, a chance unsought and unwanted, but always an occasion.  
He knew that the demons that tormented his mind wouldn't let him go, that his guilt was an indelible mark of shame, but Guy suddenly realized that he didn't want to die, in spite of everything he wanted to go on living.  
He struggled to remove the anxiety from his mind and concentrated on something more practical: whether he intended to remain in Storybrooke as he requested to Regina, he had to get to know that world so different from his.  
He broke away from the door and stepped into the room, looking around: in one corner there was a white tub with various bottles arranged on its edge, on the opposite wall a huge mirror towered over what appeared to be a kind of basin and in a corner there was a seat, white like everything else, that, according to the explanations of Regina, had to be the modern and much more practical version of a latrine.  
She showed him how, by simply moving some metal knobs, hot or cold water began to come out of those tubes made of shiny metal. He had asked if that was magic too, but Regina just smiled and told him that it was simple technological progress.  
Guy nodded, it was plausible that in so many centuries the world had evolved and new discoveries were made.  
For the first time since Marian died, Gisborne found himself thinking of something that wasn't his sin: that new world fascinated him and he wanted to know it.  
He looked in the mirror and he quickly looked away, ashamed of his appearance. Regina had looked at him wrinkling her nose and Guy realized that she had every reason to do so.  
From the day of the murder, he had stopped taking care of himself. Once he was always very clean and tidy and sometimes his men had laughed at him for that reason, but now he looked more like one of the beggars who lived in the streets of Nottingham.  
His hair had grown during those months of desperation and the dirty and matted locks surrounded his face making him look neglected and almost insane, while his clothes, once of a good quality, seemed filthy and crumpled rags and they were now too wide .  
Guy got rid of them, disgusted, dropping them to the ground and he turned on the water, beginning to fill the tub.  
He put his hand under the stream and he was surprised to see that the water was really warm.  
As he waited for the tub to fill, he continued to look around, exploring the room.  
Next to the tub there were neatly folded towels made of a soft material that he didn't know and that clearly had to be used to dry oneself after a bath, while the bulbs around the mirror lit up the room with a bright light.  
Guy opened the bottles arranged on the edge of the tub, smelling their contents. Almost every one of them smelled of flowers or fruit and Guy thought that in Nottingham only a very wealthy person could afford to use such a diverse variety of perfumed oils. Usually the nobles just to added flower petals to the water of their baths and already that was sometimes considered an extravagance.  
When the tub was full, Guy closed the tap and immersed himself in warm water, allowing his body to relax for the first time in a long time.  
He was tired, oppressed by a profound fatigue that was not only physical.  
For once, he just wanted to give in to it and let the sleep to take away every thought, but he was afraid to do so. With sleep came the nightmares and the memories, the demons that clawed at his soul and mind, torturing him.  
Guy hugged his knees, shivering despite the hot water: he may have escaped from his world, but the demons were always going to follow him because they lurked in his heart.

Henry knocked on the door and sighed as he got no response.  
He was worried for his mother: when finally things seemed to go well for her, Marian had come to Storybrooke suddenly and Regina found herself heartbroken.  
The boy was afraid that the pain could make her go back to evil and he didn't want that to happen: he loved her and he wished that she could be happy.  
He balanced better the basket in his hands and he tried to knock again. He wouldn't surrender: he had searched the internet for the best methods to cheer up someone who suffered for love and he had filled the basket with chocolate cookies, a few slices of Granny's apple pie, a bottle of wine, potato crisps, candies and some fun movies to watch together.  
Now he just had to convince her mother to accept his company.  
Regina didn't open the door and Henry decided to enter using his key: if she was at home, he would convince her to spend some time with him, but if she was away he would wait and in the meantime he would place the content of his basket on the table in front of the sofa.  
He entered the house and he immediately noticed a note placed on a table.  
 _I will return in a few hours, make yourself at home, but don't damage anything._  
Henry stared at the piece of paper with a puzzled expression.  
"This _is_ my house. And when I have ever done any damage?"  
He wondered why his mother had left the note on that table rather than attaching it to the refrigerator door as she usually did.  
A groan coming from the living room startled him: it wasn't the voice of his mother, but it was clearly the voice of a man.  
Henry put down his basket and came to the door cautiously.  
There was a stranger asleep on the couch. The man had to be clearly tormented by some nightmare because he kept to stir and moan in his sleep.  
"Hey!" Henry called, without approaching and the man opened his eyes with a start that made him roll off the couch.  
The stranger looked around, confused, as if he didn't realize where he was, then he saw the boy standing in the doorway.  
"Who are you?" He asked.  
"No, who are _you_? What are you doing in my house and where is my mother?"  
The man shook his head slightly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as to relieve an annoying headache.  
"The witch has a son?" Guy asked, amazed, then he noticed that the boy looked at him suspiciously and he decided to answer his question. "I don't know where she went, she left a note saying she would be back in a few hours."  
Henry stared at him. So the message was intended for the man and not for him, he realized suddenly, and he wondered again who he was.  
"Are you new in Storybrooke? Which fairy tale did you come from?  
Guy looked at him, puzzled.  
"Fairy tale? My name is Guy of Gisborne and I'm from Nottingham."  
The boy smiled and nodded.  
"Ah, now I understand, wait a minute!"  
He ran upstairs and returned with a large book. He placed it on the table in front of the sofa and began to leaf through it.  
"There! I knew I already heard your name!" He exclaimed, pointing to a page. Guy looked at the picture that accompanied the text and he startled in recognizing his rival.  
"You are an enemy of Robin Hood. Here it says..." The boy said, starting with enthusiasm and stopping shortly after.  
"What?" Guy asked, leaning forward to read the book. He arrived at the end of the page and he looked at Henry, frowning. "Here it says that Robin Hood killed me and brought my severed head to the sheriff of Nottingham. What kind of nonsense is this?"  
Henry shook his head.  
"I don't know. In the book there are the stories of all the inhabitants of the enchanted forest."  
"What's the enchanted forest?"  
"Don't you come from there as everyone else?"  
"No."  
They looked at each other and said nothing for a few seconds, then Henry gave him a small smile.  
"Probably my mother will have an explanation. We will ask her when she comes back."  
Gisborne nodded, pausing to look at the clothes he wore. When he got out of the bath, the clothes he had left on the floor were gone and he had found them folded and perfectly clean next to the stack of towels. Even the tear that was on one of the sleeves had been perfectly repaired: they were his old clothes, but they seemed to be like new.  
There was no other explanation than magic, although it still seemed hard to believe.  
"Did you have a nightmare, before?" Henry asked. "Don't deny it, I know how it feels, it happened to me too after a sleeping spell."  
"You're all so... Do you all use magic in this place?"  
"No, not everyone. But nobody is surprised if they happen to run into a spell or a magic item. If you stay here long enough you'll get used to it too. So, what did you dream? I happened to see a room on fire."  
Guy shuddered. In the past he had dreamed about the fire that killed his parents, but in recent times he only dreamed of Marian. Sometimes she was alive and she accused him of all his sins, while sometimes she was lying on the sandy soil of Imuiz, with blood spreading across her white dress. Each time, however, Guy felt the weight of his guilt and it tried to drag him to hell.  
"I don't want to talk about it." He said grimly, but the boy was not discouraged.  
"It doesn't matter. But I know what might make you feel better."  
Guy was about to tell him that maybe he didn't _want_ to feel better, that he didn't deserve it, but Henry had already left the room and he came back with a basket in his hands.  
"I got this stuff for mom, but I feel that you need it, too." He said, moving the storybook from the table to make room for cookies, chips and slices of apple pie.  
"Help yourself, I'll be right back."  
He disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes and he returned with two steaming cups. He put one of them on a table in front of Guy and he noticed that the other had not touched anything.  
"Aren't you hungry?" He asked, grabbing a slice of cake. "At least taste something. Look, they aren't poisoned." He concluded, biting a piece of cake.  
Gisborne gave him a hesitant look, then he did the same. In fact he was hungry, more than he had been for many months and the smell that came from those foods was inviting.  
He finished the slice of cake and he let out a smile.  
"It's good." He told Henry. "Thank you."  
The boy pointed to the plate of cookies and to the cup.  
"Try them too."  
Guy took a sip of the hot drink: it was thicker than milk and it tasted unfamiliar, sweet and slightly bitter at the same time. Also he tasted a biscuit and he found out that the dark substance that covered it had a flavor similar to that of the beverage.  
He looked up at the boy and he saw that Henry was staring at him with an amused smile.  
"It's chocolate. You've never eaten it, right? When you're feeling down there is nothing better than it."  
Gisborne almost laughed. Whatever it was that chocolate, and even if it really was miraculous for mood, it certainly couldn't help _him_.  
 _But it was good_. He thought, taking another cookie.


End file.
